10 Things To Know About 10th MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference

Rich Campbell
, ContributorI cover sports on the field and business decisions off the field.Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

The MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference celebrates its tenth year this weekend with its annual gathering being held in the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center. It has attracted sell out crowds of over 2000 the last few years with a price point of $575 this year (a discounted student rate of $200 was also available).

So how did this event, dubbed the Super Bowl of Analytics, get to this point and what can this year's attendees expect to find in Boston on Friday and Saturday? Here are ten things to know about the history of the conference and this year's version held March 10 and 11:

The conference started as an intimate affair on the MIT campus, co-founded by Jessica Gelman, Vice President of Customer Marketing & Strategy at Kraft Sports Group (New England Patriots) and Daryl Morey, General Manager of the Houston Rockets and an MIT alum. Dean Oliver, author of Basketball on Paper and a frequent panelist over the years remembers, "The first Sloan Conference was in an MIT lecture hall, with classic fluorescent lights and those desks that fold up so you can write on them. It was small, more intimate, and more focused on Sports Business than on Sports Analytics."

Since its creation ten years ago, "Sloan", as attendees informally call the conference, has changed as the analytics world has grown. Ben Alamar Director of Production Analytics at ESPN and author of Sports Analytics: A Guide for Coaches, Managers, and Other Decision Makers, points out that the conference has not just grown in number of attendees, but has also "evolved regularly, adding and continuing to strengthen a research track, growing in numbers and expanding the set of sports discussed".

There is direct competition this year. South by Southwest, or SxSW as most know it, features a strong sports speaker list and is for the first time being held the same weekend as Sloan. SxSports, which debuted in 2014, includes featured speaker NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, ESPN's Rachel Nichols, Jonah Keri of Sports Illustrated/MLB Network - all three have presented at Sloan in past years.

Daryl Morey, co-founder of the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference and a panelist on Future of the Front Office at this year's conference. (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan, File)

The biggest room at Sloan attracts the biggest crowds to see big name speakers. This year in the third floor ballroom there are one-on-one sessions with NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman on Friday and Five Thirty Eight's Nate Silver on Saturday. Other sessions in the room across the two days include star power of Golden State Warriors GM Bob Myers, Morey, former NBA coaches Tom Thibodeau, Scott Brooks and Mike Brown, Houston Astros General Manager Jeff Luhnow, and owners Stan Kronke of the Los Angeles Rams and Wyc Grousbec of the Boston Celtics.

While that room attracts big crowds, the next generation of analytics innovators can be found in the Research Papers presentations in room 205. While the presenters may not be well known yet, some will soon be. For example, Rajiv Maheswaran and his colleagues' Best Paper winner in 2012 led to the founding of basketball data service provider Second Spectrum in 2013. Maheswaran shared their approach in this 2015 TED talk. "These are where the new ideas at the conference are really laid out. Some of the best analysts in the field today have first had the spotlight shown on them at Sloan," says Alamar.

There are many other activities for those on site. There is a trade show, a case competition for students, a hack-a-thon and an awards presentation, The Alpha Awards to recognize analytics accomplishments from the previous year. And all of these activities lead to opportunities to network with industry leaders. The event's image has left behind the Bill Simmons' "Dorkapalooza" moniker from 2009.

Even though the event is sold out, that does not mean that there is no access. The presentations in the main ballroom will be live streamed. The cost is just $29.99, to give those interested in the world of sports analytics a sampling of the proceedings. And if streaming for two days is not possible, the conference hashtag #SSAC16 is an easy follow on Twitter.

It is not just that the conference has changed in the last decade, so has analytics with an increased emphasis on "Big Data". According to Oliver, "The analytics world has changed in a few ways. The word 'analytics' wasn’t really used in 2007, first of all. Second, the analytical world then was more about extracting the maximum info out of very little data, whereas now it’s about extracting useful info out of massive amounts of data."

This year marks the ten year anniversary, but what does the future hold for the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference? According to co-founder Gelman, "As access to data, creation of new data sources and the power of computing continues to explode, we are increasingly able to get more nuanced in our analytics. The future of analytics will focus on data management and driving change from insights uncovered through those analyses. For the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics conference, as analytics continues to extend in reach to the individual (both consumer and athlete) and globally (32 countries are represented at this year’s conference), we will continue to strive to fulfill our mission to foster growth and innovation in sports analytics. Through ongoing access to our panels and presentations or through extensions to our current event, we will evolve as analytics does."

While Gelman and Morey are the constants over the years, the driving force behind the conference each year is a dedicated group of MIT MBA students who do the planning and execution of the proceedings on a year round basis. Many work on the conference in their first year at MIT and move into leadership roles as second year students. Morey and Gelman recognize the students'efforts each year in their opening remarks and at the conclusion of the two day event.